While Apple and Samsung Electronics are still crushingly dominant in the global smartphone market, a number of smaller Asian vendors are starting to play catch-up.

When Apple sparked the smartphone boom by launching its first iPhone in 2007, the fledgling market was shaped by consumers in the U.S. and other developed markets. Today, by contrast, much of the growth in the global smartphone market is coming from China, India and other emerging markets where consumers are still replacing their old-school, no-frills cellphones.

Apple and Samsung remain the only vendors out there with double-digit market shares for smartphones, but the combined market share for the two behemoths fell in 2013, two separate market-share reports from research firms International Data Corp. and Strategy Analytics showed Tuesday. Read More »

Research firm IDC predicts sales of tablet computers will exceed PC sales for the first time in the fourth quarter. The holiday-quarter sales trend isn’t likely to be permanent, and PCs are expected to outsell tablets for the full year.

Still, if IDC’s quarterly prediction pans out, it will mark a major milestone for tablets — a category that basically didn’t exist until the 2010 introduction of Apple’s iPad. It also will be another psychic blow for the battered PC market and major PC players like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Read More »

Laptop computers are offered for sale at a Tiger Direct store in Chicago.

By Ben Fox Rubin

Market researcher International Data Corp. cut its estimates for world-wide PC shipments in 2013, saying customers are increasingly considering alternatives such as delaying PC purchases or switching to tablets and smartphones.

IDC now expects shipments to fall by 7.8% this year to 321.9 million shipments, from its previous view of a 1.3% decline. In 2014, shipments are expected to fall by 1.2%. Shipment volume is expected to reach 333 million in 2017, below the 349 million shipped in 2012 and a peak of more than 363 million in 2011.

The firm said the updated forecast reflects a significant drop in volume during the first quarter. Last month, IDC said world-wide shipments of laptops and desktops fell 14% in the first quarter from a year earlier. That was the sharpest drop since IDC began tracking this data in 1994 and marked the fourth straight quarter of declines.

In contrast, tablet shipments are now expected to rise by 59% this year to 229.3 million units, up from 144.5 million units last year, IDC said. The firm said it expects tablet shipments to outpace the entire PC market–both portable and desktop–by 2015. Read More »